Published 5:30 am, Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Not only is he educated in the sciences, he also holds a master's degree in business administration from Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.

And — as the proverbial cake icing — he enjoys community outreach and fundraising.

"I think each person who comes into an executive director role will kind of fill that job in a different way," said Kartrude, who took up his post on June 2. "For me, I enjoy the public contact. I enjoy the fundraising role. The responsibility for stewardship into the future is a great honor."

But, he said, he wouldn't have taken on the challenge of running the 2,500-acre nature center if there weren't already excellent staff members and programs in place.

"My immediate job is not to upset the apple cart but, over the long run, to help build on that foundation — to expand the role of conservation and preservation into the community and provide the support and funding that it takes for these staff members to get their jobs done," he said.

Sue Sutterby, who served a year as interim director while the search was under way for a permanent leader, said Kartrude had the board's unanimous approval.

"There was no question that he would be a good choice," said Sutterby, who came out of retirement as special education director for the Alvin school district to manage the nature center.

Sutterby said she was not interested in the permanent job but will stay on for a few months in a part-time role during the transition.

A native of the Los Angeles suburb of Huntington Park, Kartrude worked in Houston in petroleum services from 1981 to 1987, during which time he met and married his wife, Beth. The couple's children and grandchildren now live in the Kingsville area.

After leaving Houston in 1987, Kartrude spent a total of nine years in California and Washington state, where he worked in environmental services.

From 1996 to 2007, he managed the Port of Siuslaw in Florence, Ore., on the central Oregon coast. In that job, he was responsible for overseeing the 700-square-mile Siuslaw River watershed, he said.

Before moving back to Houston last month from Oregon, Kartrude did freelance work as a naturalist and geoscience instructor for hiking, photography and whale-watch programs.

Throughout his career, Kartrude said he has done volunteer work related to preservation and conservation. He helped organize docents for the Seattle aquarium in the 1980s and was later founder and president of the Perpetua Foundation, a support organization for the U.S. Forest Service visitors' center at Cape Perpetua near Yachats, Oregon.

Kartrude said he is intrigued at Armand Bayou Nature Center's "unique place in geography" as a large undeveloped tract surrounded by residential and industrial development.

"It astounds me that the community had the foresight to carve this out and protect it for the future," he said.

The center at 8500 Bay Area Blvd. was named for Armand Yramategui, who started the drive to preserve Armand Bayou (formerly Middle Bayou) and the surrounding land. The center was incorporated in 1974.